Introversion slaughters sacred cows and their latest game

Introversion’s Chris Delay confesses that Subversion, their high-tech heist game, is on hiatus.

…the first thing I plan to do is gut the thing from top to bottom of all the tech fluff that we forced in over the years. Without a core game it’s all a worthless distraction, and I will NEVER again spend so long making tech for a game without having a solid core game in place first. Subversion needs a total rethink from top to bottom, and some long standing sacred cows need slaughtering.

…somewhere along the 6 years of part-time development, we had lost our way. We couldn’t even remember what sort of game it was supposed to be anymore. We’d ended up with a game that looked and sounded brilliant, classic Introversion with its blue wireframe and sinister faceless characters. But there was a massive gaping hole where you would normally see a “core game”. We’d tried and tried to fill that hole with ambitious tech and experimental systems, but you couldn’t escape it.

In the end, after all that development and years of work, you still completed the bank heist by walking up to the first door, cracking it with a pin cracker tool, then walking into the vault and stealing the money. There was no other way to complete that level. And this would be the essential method by which you would complete every level after that. Technology 1, Gameplay 0 – we’ve made the fatal mistake of having more fun making the game than gamers would ever have playing it.

I deeply admire any developer who can say and do what Delay has just said and done. Most companies would throw a few more years of development into the game and then release it to recoup their expenses. Developers should learn to slaughter sacred cows more often.